Freelance musician collection / Ceremonial music, vol. 3

Freelance musician collection

This book will allow guitarists to propose to their clients a variety of pieces in duet (or little ensemble) that are well-known to the audience. It will be easy to sight read them on the guitar, or simply read the chords that are placed above the guitar staff. This second option allows any harmonic instrument (piano or harp for example) to play the accompaniement from the same score. The forms are simple, short and the arrangements are focused on the main musical theme (sometimes the developpment has been excluded from the arrangements).
The serie of arrangements for guitar and violin (or any other melodic instrument) that I propose in this book has been thought of as the perfect tool for professional musicians aware of the need to accomodate easily and quickly the requests of people needing music performances in a ceremonial context.
David Jacques

Here is a collection of short and for the most part, well-known melodies nicely arranged in a straightforward manner by the Canadian guitarist David Jacques. His initiative behind this project came from his requiring easy to play accessible repertoire material for performing at «ceremonial« events such as weddings, funerals, etc.: so in this edition he has collected 18 works by the likes of Verdi, Elgar, Bach, Mozart, Sibelius, Handel, Ravel and others and ably arranged them for melody instrument and guitar. Each one also has the chords printed above the guitar score for any additional instrument to join in, plus several of the pieces are supplied with the lyrics. This type of book is also incredibly useful for teachers to use with their students as lower-grade sight-reading material if playing the single melody lines and higher-grade material if taking the guitar part. The music is well-presented in full score with a separate part for the melodic instrument.
Steve Marsh (Classical Guitar Magazine)